Stropping with a leather strop charged with some kind of buffing 
compound will make an edge appreciably sharper even after a 9000 water 
stone. You don't need the green crayon any number of buffing compounds 
will work. Whatever you can get locally or order the green when you 
happen to be ordering something else. I use yellow rouge because I 
happen to have some and it doesn't have much wax in it so it isn't messy 
it just makes dust. Just glue a piece of leather to a nicely flattened 
hardwood. I like veg. tanned leather because it is harder than  oil 
tanned and won't compress quite as much. With stropping a little goes a 
long way. It is amazing how  fast a strop will cut tool steel. Since the 
leather tends to compress and wrap around the edge it will round off the 
edge destroying the edge if over done. I go no more than 2 strokes on 
the bevel and 3 or 4 on the back.  I also use a pine board as a strop. 
Being hard it allows me to swirl the plane blade around in a circular 
fashion that I use when honing the back of the blade on my water stones 
yet woun't destroy the edge so fast. If one is very sensitive to how the 
plane is (or chisel) is working and can sense dulling fast enough, 
before too much damage is done, one can strop a blade back to life 
without having to hone.
Ken
in Ypsilanti

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>>Would using a leather strop after the 2000 grit paper make the edge 
>>appreciably sharper, or would the difference really not be enough to 
>>justify the cost of a strop (it would be a birthday gift, actually). 
>>If the strop WOULD be a good idea, do I need to use the green 
>>charging compound commonly available, or do I just use the leather 
>>as-is?
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